The invention is directed to synthetic receptor(s) which comprises a polyfunctional organic template covalently linked to two or more oligomers which may independently be the same or different and may independently be straight chain, cyclic or branched. The template may be linked to an identifier which uniquely defines the synthetic receptor. The identifier is a stable chemical molecule or a plurality of stable chemical molecules distinguishable and detectable to picomolar levels or may be an oligonucleotide. In a preferred embodiment, the template is covalently linked to a solid support which is linked to an identifier. In addition, the invention includes methods of preparing synthetic receptors and synthetic receptor libraries. The synthetic library may be linked with identifiers such that the library comprises a plurality of different synthetic receptor members. The invention also provides methods for assaying a synthetic receptor library to determine suitable synthetic receptor(s) which (a) bind an acceptor molecule; (b) exhibit biological activity; (c) which catalyze a reaction or inhibit a catalyzed reaction; and (d) separate compounds in chromatography.
This application is a divisional of U.S. Ser. No. 08/676,143, filed Oct. 24, 1996, which was a national stage filing under 35 USC .sctn.371 of international application PCT/US95/00572, filed Jan. 13, 1995, which was, in effect, a continuation-in-part and claimed the priority of U.S. Ser. No. 08/181,628 filed Jan. 13, 1994, the contents of which are incorporated by reference to the subject application.
The invention was made in part with government funds under Grant CHE92-08254 from the National Science Foundation. Therefore, the U.S. Government has certain rights in the invention.
